


Servant Heart

by jotunblood



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Established Relationship, Hair Kink, M/M, Master/Servant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 05:19:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4250835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jotunblood/pseuds/jotunblood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Melkor returns to Angband with an injury, and Mairon takes it upon himself to attend him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Servant Heart

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This is a follow up to Eyes of Wood, but really only in the sense that some things mentioned in it are mentioned to have happened. Probably isn't necessary to read it, but the beginning will make a little more sense if you do!
> 
> 2\. No smut, but it definitely gets heavy in the building lust department so there's that?
> 
> 3\. Hope y'all enjoy it! I had a great time writing it, and couldn't wait to get it posted.

Melkor’s trust was a blood won thing, slick with the red of bygone attempts to catch it and beyond the hope of mere men to earn.

But Mairon, as the Maia would remind any who dared question it, was no mere measure of anything.

Fresh from another sojourn in the Northern tribes, Melkor called his lieutenant to his chambers for debriefing. The Maia’s initial plan had been executed months ago, barely a season after his crafting of their set of letter stones. His Master had been a quick study, absorbing lessons like a child would the words of its mother. Mairon had been little more than a guiding hand the first few sessions, reminding his Lord of the stones’ names and rudimentary interpretations. Beyond that, Melkor had taken his education upon himself.

He’d kept the stones in his chambers between official lessons, practicing the art in his private moments. Within the month, he could name and reproduce images of any of the letters on command; by the third, his “divinations” had progressed from stilted and flat to nuanced, neatly marrying the themes of the stones to whatever subject Mairon could think to request a reading on.

To say the Maia was shocked would suggest he’d ever doubted the Ainu’s ability. He hadn’t. He was, however, duly impressed.

After less than half a year of study, a single night in the North won Melkor the confidence of the High Priest. He’d slipped like pestilence through the doors of the temple where the official had been preparing for an upcoming festival. As his Lord told it, the sudden appearance alone was nearly enough to convince the Priest. Mairon didn’t doubt it. He could imagine the horror his Master must have seemed: looming too large for the sanctuary built to hold the small bodies of Men, blackened fist curled tight around a pillar, sharp eyes cutting tiles and pews and the trembling flesh. That the Priest dared to contest Melkor’s claim at all spoke to his courage.

In the end, however, the Priest’s valiance mattered little. It and his mistrust broke upon the rocks of the Ainu’s knowledge, and in bare hours he’d sent scouts to each of the tribes to herald their fabled Spirit’s return.

Melkor’s first stay, which spanned a fortnight to ensure the elders of each tribe met him, had been a spark, kindling for the fire he intended to make of their trust. The Ainu’s encore visits, which were his pleasure to make every few weeks, were devoted to nurturing it. Trip by trip, Melkor built up the faith of the tribes like the stone steady base of a temple. When his Master called on them to move, Mairon doubted that even the children could be dissuaded from taking up arms.

But that was a matter for another afternoon. This day, this hour, after what hadn’t been long enough to even brush the road’s dust from his hair, Melkor had called Mairon to his suite. Whatever his Master devised for the future of the tribes was of no consequence in the face of that present, mild command.

 

************

“Men of the North,” the Ainu spat as way of greeting, sparing his lieutenant no time to shut the door behind himself. “They could as rightly be called pigs.”

Mairon laid his back against the oily wood, letting his weight click it shut. It was an interesting start to their meeting, certainly. The Ainu often returned from the North in a foul mood, but he had yet to curse the Men so openly. The Maia could only guess a tribesman had done something distasteful, though he feared for that unlucky soul if so. His own stay in the North had taught him that the sins of Men were woven with unchecked, questing fingers. If any had attempted to lay hands so boldly on the Ainu as they had tried with Mairon, it was doubtful they had hands still to show for it. Skilled though his Master could be in matters of diplomacy, that was one blunder the Maia knew he would not be able to undo.

“Has my Lord been offended?”

Melkor scoffed. “Only on the subject of hygiene. How you could stand to live so long in their filth, I don’t know.”

Mairon checked the grin that threatened to splay his lips, but only just. 

The untidiness of the tribes was a real enough thing. The worn fabric of their tents had darkened long ago, and grew darker by the day under the touch of seasons and dirt and sweat. Even the temple was dusted with old earth, and it was more uncommon to find a Man had bathed than he had not. It had been discomforting, but not altogether untolerable. Fastidiously though the higher ranking inhabits of Angband bathed, it was within the presence of raucous soldiers Mairon most often dwelled. He was not unaccustomed to the sticky sweetness of sweat, and a month among Men had not been long enough for dread to rise at the smell of it. 

Melkor, to whom the stench of the sparing rings was no stranger, had never spent more than two weeks in the tribes’ stale tents-- this visit in particular spanned a mere three days--, and had in the Maia’s opinion even less cause to complain. The Ainu’s journeys were barely long enough to dim the cold bright paleness of his cheeks.

“I managed with minimal discomfort,” Mairon said lightly, fingers finding the tufted end of his braid. “And I think My Lord should be able to do the same. What would your new subjects think if they learned a bit of dirt could dampen your mood?”

It was a touch too coy, perhaps, for his Master’s fresh annoyance. The words were yet tacking themselves to the air when Melkor’s gaze cut from his muddy boots to his servant resting easy against the door. The narrow bridge of the Ainu’s nose crumpled like the snout of a beast, but Mairon didn’t cower beneath it. He settled firmer against the door, tapered nails combing absently through his ends of his hair, and waited for the glinting silver of his Lord’s eyes to soften. 

It didn’t take long. Melkor’s moods ran quick at even his worst moments, and in the warmth of his chambers, luxurious pillows at his back, the Ainu was rarely at his worst. And if Mairon took some credit for that fact this day-- well, it _had_ been several nights since they had seen one another last. Mighty though his Master might be, hunger hummed ghostly beneath his skin. Rare was the day that the phantom didn’t drag Melkor’s fingers through the Maia’s hair, across his shoulders, over the swell of his hips. 

Three nights, and long ones if the slow mapping of his Master’s eyes across delicate twisting fingers was any indication. 

Annoyance banked, Melkor’s attention returned to his boots.

“Those heathens are not my subjects,” he said coolly. “They are mere prospects still, and will be counted as such.”

The distinction was pointless. From the moment tutoring began, Mairon knew his Master would see this charade through to its conclusion. His Lord’s time was a precious thing, and as such he took on nothing he didn’t intended to finish. But it was clear that the sojourn, however brief, had soured the Ainu’s mood, and Mairon ceded the point.

“As you say, Master.” He lowered his gaze from Melkor’s, carefully crafting his submission. “And may I ask how your prospect fares?”

“I would prefer you didn’t.”

Mairon’s eyes bounced back at that, concern crinkling their corners. His Master’s visits so far had been successful, and the Maia couldn’t think of any reason that might change. Not unless Melkor had voiced his present distaste to some official-- and he wouldn’t, Mairon knew, for gossip aside his Master was not even fractionally that crass. 

Sensing his question, the Ainu gave ground. 

“We are not found out, if that is your concern.” He loosened the mud sticky laces of one boot with a grimace. “Your… efficacy as a tutor has fairly eliminated that threat.”

Mairon indulged himself at that, allowing his polite smile to split wolfish. “I find reward based systems to be very stimulating for students.”

He remembered, in fact, more lessons than not coming to a skittering halt for the sake of reward. A stone’s name coming to mind quicker than it had before, tighter illustrations of the letters, a particularly thorough divination-- Melkor’s education progressed in lunges, and it had been Mairon’s pleasure to coax him deeper into the study with the pads and crooks and callouses of clever fingers. It had been exhilarating to count the cracks in Melkor’s husky voice, to listen to its power flicker like the flame of a candle as hands worked sure, slow patterns over his tented breeches. 

_Concentrate, My Lord._

Were he anyone else, Mairon surely would have been flayed for such impudence. 

“In any case--” Melkor’s voice snatched him from the memory. “-- it isn’t the plan that troubles me. Your course is running smooth, as it ever does.”

The admission was careless, its ease in the wake of the fading memory sending pleasure on a curling path up Mairon’s arms and through the muscle and bone of shoulders. It was almost cruel, the Maia thought, how low his melting point was, how little heat his Master need generate to puddle his like gold. And crueler still was how surely his Lord knew it.

“What, then?” the Maia asked, the compliment’s comfort coming last to coil at the base of his throat.

Melkor grunted, kicking off the soaked boot he’d been battling. “Nothing my advisor might smooth over with words.”

Not for the first time in his service, Mairon wondered at his Master’s stubborn habit of evasion. Had not Melkor summoned him from the fortress’ belly, dragged him from the desk upon which he’d been designing new armor? Melkor well knew that such an impromptu meeting was called at the sake of productivity, so what purpose did the Ainu’s sidestepping now serve? What purpose did it ever?

Releasing the door’s handle and peeling his back off the oily wood, Mairon took the room in deep, slow strides.

“My Lord knows well how easily I move between roles.” The heels of his boots clicked rhythmic against stone tiles. “If my counsel will do no good, you need only tell me what will.”

Melkor’s fingers threaded in the laces of his remaining boot, attention bent low and tracking the leather of Mairon’s feet. He said nothing as the Maia closed in. Neither, Mairon noted, did he remove the second boot. The Ainu sat suspended, hunched almost protectively over the foot, gaze lighting wary on his lieutenant’s ankles.

Mairon stilled his advance while several squares of tile still lay between them. Swath between his brows scrunched mountainous, the Maia drank in the strangeness of his Master’s stance: curled like a distrustful beast, strong hands covering a foot he hadn’t so much as tapped since Mairon’s arrival, fingers knotted in laces the Ainu surely would have undone by now if he had any intention. And then, the lingering fact-- the wound bestowed upon him like a parting gift by that ugly Elf. It was that foot, Mairon was sure. How many sleepless nights had he spent tending the hurt when it was still fresh, and how many more since when its ghost settled poisonous in damaged nerves?

“Master,” the Maia prompted gently, sinking to his knees to meet Melkor’s hostile gaze. “Are you hurt?”

Silence followed. For a long moment it seemed Melkor would deny it. His Lord’s pride was wretched when wounded, and often saw him biting his tongue to bleeding submission when such questions were posed. 

But with a quivering breath the Ainu relented, signalling defeat with a nod.

“The rocky hills those peasants haunt are like walking on daggers.” Melkor’s voice came tighter through his teeth for the admission. “I intended to stay longer, but feared even a day more would cripple me.”

It wouldn’t have. Melkor’s wound was no longer so severe that straining it would end him, but Mairon didn’t doubt that it would have bound him to the bed for several days upon return. Given that he responded to it this early, however… well, an exam would need performing before any guesses could be made.

“I’d like to see it,” Mairon said. When Melkor parted his lips in protest, the Maia parried. “I speak now as a caregiver, My Lord. Whether you allow the examination or not, that boot must come off. If you mean to protest now out of hesitance to remove it, know that I have no intention of leaving until that at least has been done.”

His Master’s lips curled back from crooked teeth, exposing the snarl like a nerve. Mairon didn't to shy from it.

“It cannot swell properly, trapped as it is.” That was nothing his Master didn’t know. The injury was old enough now for any fit it pitched to be a mere encore, but it warranted repeating. “Neither can the pain bleed from it. It would lessen if you let the injury breathe free of its vise. Refusing to do so does nothing prolong your own suffering.”

“Enough!” Melkor’s bark cracked against the chamber walls like thunder, too sudden for Mairon to school his jump. “You think to lecture me in my own chambers?”

The words ran hot, and Mairon was surprised to hear genuine ire in them. Laying palms flat to stone, the Maia dipped into a low bow, knees brushing the curve of his ribs.

“No, Master,” he soothed, hoping to placate the Ainu with submission coded in the notches of his proffered back. “I thought only of your well-being. Forgive me.”

The heat of his Lord’s gaze laid beating like noonday sun on Mairon’s neck an itching eternity longer, then broke with a stormy sigh.

“Examine it if you must,” the Ainu said stiffly, “but you will leave the extraction to me.”

“If My Lord commands.”

“He does.”

Bare inches from the bowed crown of the Maia’s head, Melkor began his careful removal. Mairon remained prostrate, affording the Ainu a modicum of privacy as he loosened the laces and slipped his aching foot free. It was halting work. The wet drag of leather on skin was cut by Melkor’s increasingly bitter curses, and Mairon’s hands ached to take over. In his gentlest moments, his Lord’s touch could still fall like rock. The Maia’s own attention would be kinder by long years. 

Still, his Master had made his terms clear. Nose chilling against stony tile, Mairon dug his nails dutifully into the grout and practiced patience. 

The offending boot fell aside minutes later, its metal cap clicking against the toe of its twin. Mairon breathed easier for it, but stayed low. The chore had done its work on Melkor, and the Ainu’s breath clawed shaking through his throat. Whatever plateau his pain might find, the Maia had a mind to let it do so before aggravating it anew.

“Well?” 

Melkor’s weight shifted, coaxing a death rattle from the bed’s aging frame. His shadow stretched, and prone beneath it Mairon was eclipsed. The shade brought no chill. His Master’s shadow was that of a volcano, boiling earnest in the absence of sun. Close-- the Ainu had dipped so close in his curiosity. His slowly steadying breath puffed kittenish against the nape of his lieutenant’s neck; if Mairon raised his fingers, they would surely snag in a spill of dark, dirty hair.

Time was passing, headless of the distraction settling in Mairon’s greedy knuckles. Through the march of it, Melkor’s smoky baritone came again.

“Have you any intention of attending me, _Gorthaur_ \--” the title was a tease breaking through his Master’s gloom, and Mairon’s unease fell away in the face of it. “--or was I deceived for whatever pleasure that might bring you?”

The Maia fed his smirk to the tiles.

“I have never deceived you for pleasure, My Lord.” He straightened, brushing back bangs that had worked loose from his braid. “The gain is far too minimal to justify the risk.”

Mirth sharpened the curve of Melkor’s brow. Before retreating into the plush mountains of his blankets, he favored his lieutenant with a flash of teeth. 

“I will remember in the future to be wary of your counsel, then. Servants who lie for sport are a far smaller threat than those who have a heart for scheming.”

Despite the tease, Melkor laid his foot across Mairon’s knees scant moments after finding his lounging comfort. The act shattered their game, and the suddenness of the shift cinched aching around Mairon’s throat. Long centuries of blood-sweating beneath his Lord’s banner had turned the tender flesh of Melkor’s trust to stone, and he indulged the Maia’s jokes only because a betrayal from his lieutenant was as inconceivable as one coming from his own hand. Mairon’s heart had long since been weighed on the scales of judgement, and not been found wanting. 

Assured of his servant in fullness that would split lesser bodies at their seams, Melkor laid his aching weakness out like an offering on the altar of Mairon’s lap. If the Maia’s examination was gentler in the face of that fact, he couldn’t find it within himself to be ashamed.

Mairon tested gently, thumbs rubbing careful, firm circles into the knotted flesh of its arch and ruined heel. The ropey scar there was haloed pink, the skin around it mottled with bruises. It was strained, certainly, but not terribly. He kept the assessment to himself a moment, let his nails scratch soothing slowness along the powerful line of Melkor’s arch. Muscles jumped temptingly in its wake, engorged worm veins fluttering with a delicacy nothing else on his Master’s body hinted at. The beauty here was rare for Mairon’s hands to light on, and he was loathe to give it up.

“You will live,” the Maia said softly, nails scoring the sensitive folds beneath his Master’s toes. A fresh patch of breathy groans rode out to meet the touch. “By my estimate, a two day’s rest should see your health fully restored.”

The filth, however, which Mairon had done his best to ignore until now, would not sort itself out so.

Wet leather had left its darkness in streaks on Melkor’s pale feet, dye and worn loose flakes of it clinging like ivy to their dips and cresting bones. Mud from earthen floors was set deep in the creases and clouded the usual pearl of his nails. Sticky as they were with the ghost of weather and sweat, Mairon didn’t doubt that half of his Master’s murky mood could be washed away with uncleanliness. The Ainu suffered not even the smoke of the fortress’s fires to darken him long.

“A wash would not be remiss either.”

Melkor’s toes curled defensively in the Maia’s hands. “The breaking of the world would not move me from this bed.”

Mairon’s attention lifted, skating up his Master’s legs to judge his position. He had sank deep into the blankets during his lieutenant’s indulgent exam, kept upright only by the strength of his elbows. His head rested heavy on one shoulder, the relaxed slits of his eyes partially hidden behind strings of hair that had been too weary to join their siblings spilling down his back. The easy mood had possessed even his robes-- usually tied shut up to the root of his neck, they had worked themselves loose in his recline. Where they weren’t pooling in the dips of hip and elbow, they were splayed wide to reveal milky skin stretched over corded muscle. 

The Ainu was the picture of lordly laziness, and beyond lacking the ability to move him, Mairon lacked also the will. It wasn’t often his Master surrendered himself to his Maia’s care, and rarer still for him to revel so plainly in it. The sudden return of the old injury’s sting had robbed Melkor of the desire to lick his own wounds. 

Hungry and drunk on the tenderness of it, Mairon had no intention of letting the opportunity go to waste.

Laying Melkor’s foot once more across his lap, Mairon stretched for the wash basin resting on his Master’s bedside table. Though the date of his Lord’s return had been uncertain, the Maia had still demanded that the servants change the water each morning. An empty basin-- or worse yet, one stinking of stagnant water-- would be an offense for Melkor to return to after a stay in the chilly Northern mud. 

Given the sorry state of the Ainu’s feet, Mairon couldn’t be gladder for that stroke of forethought.

The guttural slosh of water on stone, the clunk of basin meeting tile, and Melkor’s eyes cracked open catlike. 

“What are you doing?”

His suspicion was heavy blanketed with fatigue, and Mairon knew very little he might say would cause his Master to pull away. Still, he indulged the question.

“What you will not,” he said simply, eyes tracking for a cloth. The usual rag slung over the basin’s lip was too rough for the raw injury. “You may be content to let your hurt fester in filth, but I am not. The road _will_ be cleaned from you today.”

The Maia’s tone brooked no argument, though it was doubtful Melkor would have offered one if it had. The Ainu swatted at the edges of his lieutenant’s demand with a lazy wave.

“As you say.”

Golden warmth flooded Mairon’s cheeks, coloring their apples bright. It was only mollification, an echo of the Maia’s earlier and equally ribbing submission, but it settled lust molten in his belly. Catching a glimpse of the color through sleep heavy eyes, Melkor grinned, a jagged eyetooth peeking dangerous. It did nothing to sooth the blood rush, and Mairon busied his tunnelling vision once more with the search.

Oh, but where was a cloth?

The servant who changed the basin water in Melkor’s absence had apparently also been moved to clean. Where usually Mairon might catch sight of the hem or sleeve of an undershirt beneath his Master’s bed, this day there was none. He thought to supplement a corner of his own robes, but they were nearly as coarse as the rag. His finery was more limited, and certainly not to be wasted on a day he thought would involve nothing more than sketching.

Knotting fingers in the end of his braid, Mairon cursed whatever thrall had foiled him so neatly. Laundry would not be tended to for days. Could they not have--

The Maia’s bitter thoughts trailed, focus tightening on the slide of locks through his knuckles. Soft. His hair was soft, more so than even the shirts he’d been hoping for, and thick enough to rival his Lord’s blankets in comfort. It had been washed recently enough to still slip easy over skin. If Mairon were to bury his nose in it, perhaps he would even catch the lingering smell of rose oil.

Like a well tended brush. Yes. And like a brush, it would suit his needs fine.

Fingers finding their purpose, Mairon caught the ribbon holding the braid in his nails and worked it free. He brushed it out quickly, woven chunks of it fanning into a tumble over his shoulder. Melkor, whose eyes had lost some of their heaviness the first moment Mairon’s fingers corded in his hair, frowned.

“Will that not obstruct your view?”

“Hardly. In fact--” Mairon gathered its cherry bulk in his fist and guided it to the basin, drenching the ends in cool water. “-- I imagine it will be nothing short of essential.”

His Master levered himself out of recline, back bolted straight and sleepless at the implication. 

“That isn’t necessary,” Melkor said, voice scraping the gravel of something other than weariness now. 

Mairon took the sopping ends in his free hand and squeezed. He watched his Master’s eyes blow fractionally at that: the bleeding dark of wetness spreading up the locks, excess water running rivers down his lieutenant’s wrist and dripping slow into the basin once more.

“Mairon,” his Master’s voice came again in the face of his silence, “You needn’t.”

“I want to.” The Maia gave his damp locks a final squeeze, wringing them like a washcloth. “Would you deny me this pleasure?”

Melkor’s tongue laved his full lower lip, want bobbing the apple snagged in his throat. It was cruel, perhaps, to ask such a thing. Mairon already knew the answer, knew how white his Lord’s fire burned for the touch of his hair. But it was delicious, this game he’d instigated, and he hungered to see its end.

Were the Ainu’s mind clearer, perhaps he would have teased a little in return, taken time to remind Mairon of how few of the Maia’s pleasures he had found the will to deny. But the advantage had lain too long in his lieutenant’s corner for that, and with the grace he could gather from where it lay scattered across his sheets, Melkor shook his head.

Mouth curling wry, Mairon played his final trick: a careful lean to brush soft lips against the proud bones of Melkor’s ankle. “You are generous, Master.”

Sparing his Lord no time to retort, Mairon raised the wet brush of his hair and set to work.

The leaked ink of Melkor’s boots melted beneath the Maia’s hair, spreading like watery paint. Long minutes of delicate stroking passed before the color was fully banished, revealing milky skin gone pink with attention. The grainy mud proved more difficult. Sunk as it was into deep creases and folds, Mairon’s gentle rubbing would not be enough. Wetting his hair anew, he laid it flat in his palm like a hunk of soap. Balancing his Master’s feet on the flat back of his forearm, Mairon laid the length of hair to their tender arches and scrubbed, dragging firm over dirty flesh.

Above him, Melkor’s quiet groans fell like rain. Charred fingers flexed in blankets, his lips parted in wonder of the hair kept from the paws of Men and Elves and other Maia running wicked over his heel, twirling between his toes. Mairon took great pride in the cherry locks, and saw to its care with unmatched fastidiousness. None but the Maia himself and his Master had been allowed to touch it in long years, and now it wrapped wet and filthy around the Ainu’s feet, offered up for the job like a common rag.

Had he not been focused so tightly on the chore, Mairon might have noticed the slow, almost helpless roll of his Lord’s hips as he was tended so carefully.

Only when both the water and his previously glinting hair had been dulled gray with dust did the Maia deem his task complete. Laying Melkor’s damp-- now spotless-- feet across his lap once more, Mairon wrung the last muddy wetness from the ends of his hair. He considered rebraiding it, but with the wash it was now due, it would be wasted effort.

“Is My Lord pleased?” he asked, not caring to keep the coy lilt from his words.

Blinking through a golden haze of lust, Melkor nodded, and to Mairon’s surprise the Ainu leaned down. Taking ruined hair in hand, he performed an exam of his own. Melkor dragged his fingertips on a slow journey through the softness breaking through the crown of his lieutenant’s head down to gritty tips, mapping the difference in texture the work had created. 

“You’ve done yourself injury at my expense,” his Lord observed, voice low and warm. 

Mairon shivered from both the tone and touch. “It is ever my desire to serve you. What harm I suffer in pursuit of that is of little consequence.”

The nakedness of the confession grated Mairon’s ears, but Melkor accepted it graciously.

“I know,” the Ainu near whispered, eyes moving starved over water darkened hair. “The Admirable, indeed.”

Melkor’s fingers caught in a knot. He tugged it testingly, and Mairon’s breath snagged in his rapidly tightening throat. Stars, but he _wanted_ , wanted so completely that his vision blackened with it. Could his Master not hear the pulse thundering under skin, beneath the hair in his strong hands?

“Let me wash it for you.”

The Maia’s skipping breath threatened to even into a groan at the suggestion, but he schooled it for the sake of the game.

“I seem to recall you quite adamantly refusing to wash your own body, not an hour ago.”

“You remember right.”

The tender grip on his hair hardened, tug returning wicked. Mairon’s neck gave under it, stretching long and vulnerable at the backward pull. Whatever god had given him strength before abandoned him, and under the weight he loosed a hitching whine.

“You have found your courage, then?” the Maia teased, or tried to. Coming as it did in the wake of peppering moans, it doubtlessly fell flat.

“I have.” Melkor relaxed his grip, allowing Mairon’s head to dip down again. He held his lieutenant’s gaze a silent moment before continuing. “Would you deny me?”

Through the cracks of his desire, Mairon managed a breathy laugh at Melkor’s second taunting mirror.

“I would deny my Master nothing.”

**Author's Note:**

> These horrible men will be the death of me.


End file.
